Vitalility Health vs BUPA

[maturin23]

Hi all,

I'm at the renewal stage for my business's private health cover.

We've had the most comprehensive plan with BUPA for 5 years or so and generally found them OK.

Our broker has come up with an alternative quote (12% cheaper) for Vitality Health. The cover looks similar but reviews online are rather mixed.

Does anyone have specific recent experience they can share? I'd obviously like to save some money, but would not be happy if the claim process is not good.

[Jefferson Steelflex]

Our company moved from BUPA to Vitality in 2018, it was nice for the Apple Watch and cinema tickets (do they still do that?), but I and many colleagues found the claim process difficult.

They twice turned me down on a spurious pre-existing condition criteria which was complete bks, and many others reported they were very difficult to get approval from for some types of treatment - mostly lots of form filling, justification letters from GPs, that sort of thing. This is all anecdotal of course, and people don't complain when it all goes ok so I am sure they were fine for the easier claims.

We ended up moving back to BUPA after two years, which we were told was owing to feedback from employees.

ETA - moving insurance companies always opens up problems for pre-existing checks and moratorium periods. You need to get assurances and validate what level of cover would make it worthwhile.

[Mr Pointy]

I moved from Vitality to BUPA due to Vitality becoming increasingly expensive, but that may be an age thing as I was told they want to focus on younger clients. I found the claims handling to be very good but I got fed up of the constant push to sell you more external services, presumably as they have tie-ins. Yes it might be 50% off a gym but that's still a lot of money each year they want you to spend.

It's relentless & all dressed up with fancy levels to persuade you to spend more on stuff that's actually outside the health insurance aspect.

[MaxFromage]

We moved from Bupa to Vitality about 4 years ago and the staff love the points etc. There have been a few claims and no-one has mentioned any issues, but maybe they wouldn't want to discuss it?

[ucb]

There has been and is a withdrawal of services from BUPA by a number of surgeons and anaesthetists. It's been unclear as to how many but it's certainly been large enough to prompt a response and benefit increase from BUPA.

[maturin23]

Thanks chaps - much appreciated.

[Siko]

Mate of mine is a surgeon and has also withdrawn his services from BUPA and AXA due to a difficult claims process and poor fees. I haven’t used bupa or vitality m but AXA have been really good apart from being difficult to get hold of at times. They paid a cash benefit for my cancer treatment last year without any quibbles and very quickly, plus this year they approved some specialist and very expensive spinal surgery for one of my kids. This was all wildly out of their standard fees for surgeons/anethetists etc and had to go through a special approval process but went through ok. Assuming no nasty surprises back from the hospital or AXA I am massively impressed with both parties sofar and hopefully fixed a major spinal issue that would have been just physio on the nhs.

[the-photographer]

Siko said:

Mate of mine is a surgeon and has also withdrawn his services from BUPA and AXA due to a difficult claims process and poor fees. I haven’t used bupa or vitality m but AXA have been really good apart from being difficult to get hold of at times. They paid a cash benefit for my cancer treatment last year without any quibbles and very quickly, plus this year they approved some specialist and very expensive spinal surgery for one of my kids. This was all wildly out of their standard fees for surgeons/anethetists etc and had to go through a special approval process but went through ok. Assuming no nasty surprises back from the hospital or AXA I am massively impressed with both parties sofar and hopefully fixed a major spinal issue that would have been just physio on the nhs.

We moved from Vitality to AXA (not great news about surgeon's leaving AXA)

Anyway, for the duration of our Vitality subscription, I would say they are good except for telephone access and would recommend to use their web portal where possible. Not aware of any complaints from other staff members about them, other than telephone access.

[the-photographer]

Jefferson Steelflex said:

Our company moved from BUPA to Vitality in 2018, it was nice for the Apple Watch and cinema tickets (do they still do that?), but I and many colleagues found the claim process difficult.

They twice turned me down on a spurious pre-existing condition criteria which was complete bks, and many others reported they were very difficult to get approval from for some types of treatment - mostly lots of form filling, justification letters from GPs, that sort of thing. This is all anecdotal of course, and people don't complain when it all goes ok so I am sure they were fine for the easier claims.

We ended up moving back to BUPA after two years, which we were told was owing to feedback from employees.

ETA - moving insurance companies always opens up problems for pre-existing checks and moratorium periods. You need to get assurances and validate what level of cover would make it worthwhile.

AXA offer an unconditional policy option, costs more but the consensus among staff it was worth the extra hundreds but not thousands in taxation

[craig1912]

the-photographer said:

AXA offer an unconditional policy option, costs more but the consensus among staff it was worth the extra hundreds but not thousands in taxation

The all do “Medical History Disregarded” but generally need a minimum number of employees. (20ish) and it is quite abit more expensive.

[the-photographer]

craig1912 said:

The all do “Medical History Disregarded” but generally need a minimum number of employees. (20ish) and it is quite abit more expensive.

Ah yes, that's the description I was looking for

For me it was OK £700 for Vitality to £820 (taxable benefit) for AXA, although I don't know about the company contributions.

[Scabutz]

My company policy shifted from Axa to Vitality recently.

I claimed for some counselling and that was easy and painless. They answer the phone straight away compared to Axa who take 45 mins.

If you're active you can get some good rewards. We get 4 cinema tickets a month, a movie rental a week on Rakuten, a free coffee at cafe Nero weekly and Amazon prime. Just have to log your steps or workouts

[Scabutz]

My company policy shifted from Axa to Vitality recently.

I claimed for some counselling and that was easy and painless. They answer the phone straight away compared to Axa who take 45 mins.

If you're active you can get some good rewards. We get 4 cinema tickets a month, a movie rental a week on Rakuten, a free coffee at cafe Nero weekly and Amazon prime. Just have to log your steps or workouts

[vindaloo79]

Scabutz said:

My company policy shifted from Axa to Vitality recently.

I claimed for some counselling and that was easy and painless. They answer the phone straight away compared to Axa who take 45 mins.

If you're active you can get some good rewards. We get 4 cinema tickets a month, a movie rental a week on Rakuten, a free coffee at cafe Nero weekly and Amazon prime. Just have to log your steps or workouts

You can say that again.

[Scabutz]

vindaloo79 said:

You can say that again.

bloody WiFi dropped out as I was posting